Drownin' my sorrows, avoiding tomorrows

The fake science is falling into place, finally, as are some final pieces of behind-the-scenes choreography and logistics for the story. I am now at a place where I have (most of) the information about the events that happen, both during the story and in the years leading up to it. I just need to figure out how best to let the story unfold for the reader.

The thing that I think has thrown me all along on this story is that it is actually two stories--one that took place several years before, and the one taking place in the current time of the story. For a while, I even considered trying to tell them as two separate stories. But I found that when I tried to extricate them from each other, the two individual stories felt... thinner. Less substantial. They lean on each other, and each makes the other more meaningful when they are revealed together. Which is not a new story structure, obviously. Other writers have done it. I've even done it. Just, you know, not with this particular story.

My approach to figuring out how to structure the story has been to spend this morning mostly on cat vacuuming activities. I know it flies in the face of the BIC philosophy of writing, but I have this feeling of impending revelation building in my head. (Which is like a cross between that ready-to-pop feeling you get shortly before the baby is due--except in the head--and the headache you get after too many days of sleep deprivation in a row.) And I have been thinking about the story while I fiddle with other distractions. I'm even thinking about it right now, at the just-below-the-conscious level of my brain. I can almost hear the characters' voices as they chat; I just can't quite make out the words. So yeah. Going with the gut instinct on this one, I think, and giving the muse a day or so to give me her insight before I get out my colored paper and markers and try to lure her out of hiding.

All things considered, it's been a fairly productive week on the creative front. The number of kids in the kindergarten crew has been near 20 every day this week, since they've had practice for their Christmas program every afternoon. Add to that the inability to take them outside at all and the shortage of rooms within the school which a) have room for all of them and b) are available at the times we need them, and uh... Yeah. One week to Christmas break!